Officials said Monday that Turkey has detained 402 people in the past 42 days for allegedly sharing “false and provocative” social media postings concerning the Coronavirus outbreak, officials said Monday.
An Interior Ministry statement said officials have inspected more than 6,000 social media accounts and the 402 suspects were among a total of 855 account-holders sought by authorities for sharing posts deemed to be “provocative.”
A ministry official said the social media users were detained for allegedly attempting to “cause panic” over the Coronavirus pandemic with posts that, among other things, accuse the government of not doing enough to curb the outbreak or of lying about the numbers of deaths or infections.
The country has reported a total of 2,805 deaths and 110,130 confirmed infections. It ranks seventh in the world for the number of confirmed infections, according to Johns Hopkins University, but experts believe the actual toll of the pandemic is higher than the tally.
